1 Dollar - Elizabeth II 3rd Portrait, Treaty of Waitangi

Issued to mark the sesquicentennial of the Treaty of Waitangi, signed on 6 February 1840 between the British Crown and over 500 Māori rangatira. The anniversary was politically charged — 1990 New Zealand saw significant debate over treaty interpretation and Māori land grievances that had been building since the Waitangi Tribunal's establishment in 1975. This coin entered circulation against that backdrop, not as a settled commemoration but amid active, unresolved argument about what the treaty had actually promised.